Paperless Q&A

I’ve said this many times, but I’ll say it again. Going paperless has been one of the best decisions I have made on this minimalism journey! Not having to deal with filing cabinets or piles of paper has been so rewarding! I get a lot of questions and I love answering your questions!

Here are some questions you recently asked me on Instagram regarding my paperless system.

1. How do you separate different paperwork? For example: work, church, personal, kids, household.
   You can check out my paperless system in detail HERE. When I scan these files in I save them under file names that make it easy for me to file them in the appropriate folders on my external hard drive.
   I do not save work things on this hard drive. I will save those on the cloud or on Google Drive since I am usually not the only one who needs access to these documents.
   If you are responsible for business (or church) files, you can use a different drive for those. I save those with the initials of our church name before every file. This makes it very easy for me to distinguish the difference.
   For our personal files I have a system I use for each category. Some examples are M for Medical, T for Taxes, A for Auto and so on.

2. What about notes? My kids take my paper notes.
   I love writing on paper for lists and when I’m thinking of ideas, but I found that I would lose the note or didn’t know which notebook it was in.
   When I started using the Full Focus Planner (use this link and the code SHELLEY10 for 10% off!) I had a notebook that I knew I would never lose. I use the standard size and it has a notes page for each day.
   I do also use sticky notes and if I need to keep the note I will stick it inside my planner.
   For other notes that are taken on other pieces of paper I will scan them into Evernote. I am on a committee that meets a few times each year and they give us paperwork regarding the meeting. I take notes on these papers, but once the meeting is over I scan these and save them in Evernote. This way I always have these accessible, but I can toss the actual piece of paper.
   I also utilize the notes app on my phone for times when I don’t have my planner nearby.
   Going digital with your notes is a great way to keep them from being lost forever.

3. What do you do with school papers?
   In my opinion, there are 3 types of papers that come in from school. Art and worksheets, papers to be turned back in, and informational paperwork.
   - Art and worksheets: If we kept all of this, we would fill up 2 large bins by the end of Kindergarten. Every Friday my daughter comes in with her folder bursting with the work and art she did that week. I go through and decide what to keep. I sometimes keep one or two things and something I keep nothing. I try to keep samples of her writing about once a month and then a special piece of art about once a month.
   - Papers to be turned back in. The easiest way and the ONLY way to guarantee that I’m turning in the permission slip or order form in time is for me to check her folder every day when she comes home from school. I empty her backpack and wash her lunch box and repack it around dinner time. During this time I also check her folder for any forms that I need to complete. It works the absolute best for me to not put these aside or even put them in my “to do” folder, but for me to stop right then and write the check for the field trip or check yes or no to Donuts with Dad and then pop it right back in the folder!
   - Informational paperwork. For things for school that I need to refer back to, I prefer to scan these and save them in Evernote. Then I can refer back to them as I need to no matter where I am. (I can access Evernote from my phone.) I can then delete these files when that school year is over.

4. What do you do with sentimental paper items?
   One of the people that have asked this question messaged me privately on Instagram. She had a similar experience to mine. When we moved in our house, our first house we owned that had extra storage, my doorbell range one day and there stood my parents with several boxes of things. I always call my mom the original minimalist, so thankfully there were only 3 boxes and I know she was ready to get those out of her house!
   For paper that I want to keep I have a little box that I keep cards and letters in. I go through these occasionally and purge out what I no longer want. For school papers and things that were old, I scanned these in or took photos of them. I am in the process of creating a photo book with all of these old papers.
   This is my plan for all of my kids’ keepsake papers. After they graduate high school I would like to have a book made with photos of all of the things I wanted to keep. I will have 2 copies made, 1 for them and 1 for me. By scanning items or taking photos you are preserving them far beyond their life as a piece of paper in the attic.

If you have a question that hasn’t been asked yet, ask in the comments and I will add it to my next paperless Q&A!